I have two confessions to make: I have never seen the HBO Documentary Paradise Lost or the follow up documentary, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations.
I’m not qualified to comment on legal issues presented in this movie. I can form opinions just like anyone else, but those opinions will be based entirely on news stories I read and the third installment of the Paradise Lost series, Purgatory. This aired Thursday night on HBO. What I can comment on is the quality of the programming and what the modern Pagan community might find most interesting about it.
If you are not acquainted with the story of the West Memphis 3, there are plenty of available resources. I knew as much as was covered in the national news over the last 17 years before sitting down and tuning on HBO.
The filmmakers did a good job of summarizing the events for people who might not have seen their first two installments. It brings the story up to date, shows the celebrity involvement to make the case public, and brings up the information from forensic experts who declare that they can’t say who did it but it was less than likely any of the WM3 were involved. There are interviews with the men who had been in prison since the early 90s, all three maintaining their innocence. Most importantly, the documentary includes an epilogue describing what happened in August of last year. In fact, the movie was scheduled to be aired in November of 2011, but the events of the surprise hearing in August made them pull the movie and include the new information.
The men were offered an Alford Plea from the state. I was moved my John Mark Byers, father of one of the murdered boys, who has spent some time reconsidering the events and believes that the three teenagers were not responsible for the crimes. He is interviewed outside of the courthouse where he declares the Alford Plea to be “bullshit”.
I can’t help but agree with Byers – a man who at one time burned the WM3 in efigy and later was accused by Echols himself. Today, he firmly believes that the three men are innocent and added his voice to the fight for a new trial.
They would have been granted a new trial, according to the documentary, but Arkansas made a sharp left turn by calling a special hearing and offering them the Alford plea. Rather than exonerating the three convicted men, this option exonerates the state from being accused of a witch hunt themselves. They wash their hands of it, the men proclaim innocence but declare guilt and everyone goes home and about their business. Meanwhile, someone really brutally murdered three little boys and they will never be caught. They can never be tried for these crimes because someone else is listed as guilty. But why would the state just let three murderers walk free unless they thought they would lose the new trial? In Byer’s words, it is indeed Bullshit.
Of course the idea of a legal witch hunt is important to modern pagans. The film makes a convincing case that Echols was convicted of being “weird”. Baldwin was convicted for being friends with the weird kid. Misskelley appears to be convicted because he was simple. This is disturbing for anyone, not just Pagans. One of the most disturbing segments of the documentary focused on
Dr. Dale Griffis, the prosecutions so-called Occult Expert. During the trial, the defense attempted to discredit him but the judge was unconvinced – a mail order degree from an uncredited school was a perfectly fine way to declare expertise in a field. But the documentary shows Griffis’ office – and the hand drawn degree mounted on the wall and the drawers and drawers of vVHS tapes of him speaking on the subject. Turns out, a
year before the murders, the local police had contacted him about Echols. Provided him with drawings and writings that Echols had done – including wizards holding “athames” and pentagrams. To some people, these appear to be angsty teenage doodlings. To
Griffis, this was clearly Echol’s way to commune with the devil. The now elderly “expert” shakily unfolds these drawings for the camera to discuss what they mean. It is clear that the police had their eyes on the teenager for a long time, and any reason to pin him down to something devastating was just waiting to rear its head. However, we should also be cautious that we don’t paint Echols as a martyr. He had a troubled past, but it is an important distinction that a being a troubled teen does not mean a person has committed murder. We are fond as a country of sensationalizing murder trials. I appears we have been doing it since Salem. And just look at Casey Anthony and Joran van der Sloot – guilt or innocence doesn’t actually mater as long as it makes for an interesting news story.
The documentary is moving. It is challenging. It is even in some ways inspiring. But even though the WM3 have walked out of jail, they are not entirely free. They are marked. They have a past. They will always have a cloud around them. In this case, though, the documentary was not simply about documentation. After the first film, they raised enough doubts to encourage people to take action. They made a second film to show the world what they discovered. They made a third film to show how people were trying to work together to free these men. This is not only a social commentary – this was social action.
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